Graeme Zielinski: Bennie and the Fence

In town to help christen a new UTSA cyber-security center, among other things, U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson declined to handicap the odds that the 700-mile border fence actually will get built, but it sounded like a bad bet listening to him.

The Mississippi Democrat is chair of the House Homeland Security Committee, which oversees the border security agencies, and he’s never disguised his opposition to the idea, which is slowly-and I mean slowly-becoming a reality. Meeting with an Express-News reporter and editor, he ridiculed efforts to boost the height of the fence from 10 feet to 16 feet: “All that means is the guy needs a 17-foot ladder.”

Thompson conceded that until comprehensive immigration reform was enacted, nothing except ad hoc action was going to come on border security. Though he predicted that it would continue to play a role in the presidential campaign, particularly on the Republican side: “It’s red meat,” he said.

Thompson and Rep. Ciro Rodriguez, the District 23 congressman who hosted the chairman’s visit, said they were urging employers who hire illegal immigrants, including farmers and ranchers in South Texas, to become more vocal about the jobs that need doing that undocumented workers often fill.

“What we’ve tried to do is to get groups that have benefited from having seasonal workers and other things more in the advocacy role of having a good immigration policy,” Thompson said